i too have heard nothing but bad things about the thornbirds. from my reading, they are the laughing stock of the interco line. i have yet to read about someone who was impressed with them like i have read about people that were impressed with the Boggers, TSLs or SSRs. even when one of the magazines was rating offroad tires a few months ago, they didn't even bother with the thornbirds. i would go dig up that article and have a read. at the time of publishing the TruXus model was just coming out so they weren't even available for the test. if they had been, from seeing people wheel with them, they would rated fairly high.